The Cameo of the Vatican Cameos
by Kitschgeist
Summary: In the January after the affair published as The Blue Carbuncle, while my wife was away visiting her third cousins once removed, I again dropped by my old rooms at Baker Street. [Belated birthday fic for Holmes, written because I had a few ideas, but not enough. Timeline thrown out of the window for the sake of jokes.]


In the January after the affair published as The Blue Carbuncle, while my wife was away visiting her third cousins once removed, I again dropped by my old rooms at Baker Street.

There were certain New Year traditions Holmes and I created in our bachelor days, and though I enjoyed spending the New Year in my own household, I still looked back fondly on New Years past. And so I resolved to visit Holmes, as soon as my practice slowed.

However, it was the 6th of January by the time I was able to do so, and this day, too, came with traditions of its own. As will later become apparent, these had additional, unexpected consequences.

"Watson!" Holmes smiled as he welcomed me into his rooms that afternoon. "I thought it would be the delivery, but it's you, old boy."

"It usually would have arrived by now, wouldn't it?" I said. The mantelpiece clock showed it was a quarter past two.

"Perhaps Mycroft has decided to give it a rest," said Holmes.

"Would he really?"

"No," Holmes sighed, but it was not without humour. "I assume it's merely a delay."

"I'll have a slice, just like old times," I said. "Speaking of which, have you finished your list?"

"Of course," my friend said, before leaving briefly to enter his bedroom. He returned to the sitting room with one of his commonplace books.

The highlight of my friend's New Year celebrations was his annual 'Most Dangerous Men in London' list. He would take stock of all the devilry that happened in the bounds of the city within the past year, and select the perpetrators who most interested him. "Crime is common," he would often say, so the men who made the list were not average members of the criminal classes, nor those whose deeds were most macabre, but those who best fulfilled whatever arbitrary criteria he had formulated after a few glasses of wine.

One year, I asked him if he could make a similar list for women, and he reluctantly did so. Somewhat disappointingly, but not unexpectedly, its heading was 'The Woman', and it had a single entry: 'The Woman'. I did not press the matter again.

Holmes opened the book to the relevant page and passed it to me. "Our Yarders read it with interest, as usual, but said it was useless to law enforcement, as usual."

As usual, I soon understood why. At the top of the list was "Man who sold me a Cornish pasty on the corner of Euston Rd". The explanatory note read: "Upon testing, its filling was found to be neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral".

I also saw familiar names from years past. One Sebastian Moran, who made eleventh place some years ago, before disappearing from the list, was now listed second. His latest achievement was evidenced by two magazine clippings. The first read: " _Three Months in the Jungle_ is, at turns, so incredibly boring and nauseatingly self-aggrandising, we would rather spend three months in the jungle than read it again." And the second: "Correction: due to editorial oversight, text meant for another review was used for our review of _Three Months in the Jungle_. We apologise. It is easily the best memoir, if not the best book, of the year. We love our families."

Third place was a joint award to "All crooks who lured people to vacate their homes with some promise of profit, in order to dig a tunnel to the nearby bank, conduct illegal activities on-site, etc." The explanation: "Dangerously uncreative."

The list continued in this manner, until twentieth place. This was filled by a newcomer, John Moriarty. He was described as such: "Retired colonel originally from west of England. Recently employed as an army coach. Rents my old Montague St flat. Note to self: lure him out long enough to retrieve goods under floorboards."

I had just finished reading this equally amusing and bemusing list, when there came a knock at the door. It was the page, and as I expected, he told Holmes that the day's delivery had arrived. When Holmes returned from downstairs, he carried with him, in a box, the customary cake Mycroft sent every year, as well as a knife, saucers, and forks.

He set them down on the dining table, opened the box, and, before I could count them, swiftly pulled out the numerous candles that pierced the cake - or perhaps pie, as it was that flaky variation of a Twelfth Night cake the French call a _galette des Rois_. The resulting craters made it look like a band of unruly children had all stuck their fingers into it.

He began to slice the cake, but stopped mid-way and frowned. "So soon?" he said. He poked at the cake with the tip of the knife where he stopped.

I stood to have a look. He unearthed an object from the cake. Instead of the usual small ceramic figures we had encountered before, it was a larger, white oval object. As he removed residue of almond paste from it with his fingers, I recognised it bore the face of a man in profile. He was wearing a tall, oval crown.

"Holmes, what is it?"

Holmes looked completely baffled. "I think it is the face of a pope," he finally said. "Expect to hear from Mycroft soon, Watson. There is a story behind this."


End file.
